


A Quiet Radiance

by icarus_chained



Category: Original Work
Genre: Despair, F/M, Forests, Goddesses, Gods, Hope, Light & Darkness, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Original Fiction, Recovery, Rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-09
Updated: 2014-04-09
Packaged: 2018-01-18 19:17:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1439791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/pseuds/icarus_chained
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even desperate and heartbroken, you must be careful in the forests, for there are spirits there. Sometimes, though, they are not what they seem, and do not mean you harm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Quiet Radiance

**Author's Note:**

> Odd original piece I wrote in honour of New Years a while back.

It was dark when I met him. As it always must be, but I didn't know that then.

He was very pleasant. Amiable, polite. Gentle, I thought. Perhaps he was deliberately so, to make up for the fright of having met him. But ... perhaps not. There was something behind his faint smile, something bright in his pale eyes. Something that laughed, though gently, at my nervous aggression. No. Perhaps not deliberate. Perhaps real.

He appeared out of the forest like a spirit, at the first. The moon was dark that night, the shadows beneath the trees infinite and pervasive. He resolved himself inside them as though spun together from some pale fragments of light, did not so much step forward as simply _become_. So it appeared, at least. My knife had leapt to my hand without thought, my startled yell offending the waiting silence. He blinked at me, somewhat startled by the violence of my reaction. Bemused by the purpose of it. He did not laugh at me, at least. Though I believe it was a near thing.

Instead, he apologised. With every sincerity, the gentility of his manner soothing my startled nerves. He made no move towards me, his only outward gesture the reaching of his voice, smooth and cool, to assure me of my safety. It seems strange, now, that I should have listened. To meet a spirit so suddenly in the forest, one should not be disarmed so quickly. Certainly not one such as I, who _knows_ what tricks these beings may use. That simple assurance should not have lowered my knife in my hand. Should not have calmed me so, not without artifice.

But it did. He was simply so calm. Serene, perhaps, is the word. Something in his manner simply forbore any hasty act, any bristling instinct. Not a trick. Or a more subtle one than almost any. He did not force calm upon me. Simply invited it, with that small curve of his pale mouth.

I ... perhaps I should describe him to you. Perhaps I should tell you what it was I saw, that held me so. Though perhaps it is useless, for it was less the sight and more ... more the _sense_ of him. The quiet, unassuming reality. He was still. All the stillness in the world. A pale center in the darkness, faintly smiling. That, more than what I saw, was what mattered.

But his appearance ... A spirit, most definitely. No mortal man, this creature. Nor a ghost, either, though perhaps one inexperienced might be forgiven for thinking so. He was pale, silver-haired, grey-eyed, delicate of feature. Even his lips, softly curved, were some greyish white, pale in the darkness. And his costume ... but I could not see it. Or saw, but it was not what I thought. He wore shadows. Wore the darkness, wrapped it close like a cloak, so that I could not see where it was he began and where it was he ended. He had been spun up from the shadows beneath the trees, pale and present, more than what he seemed. Deeper, without edges.

He asked my business. One does, I suppose. Alone, in the forests, in the dark. I suppose I must have seemed ... rather foolish, to him. Though still, he didn't laugh at me. Perhaps I would not have blamed him overmuch if he had. My errand was not so urgent as to justify so foolish a risk.

I think, perhaps, he understood that my errand was an excuse only. I think he understood that I ... that I had wanted the shadows beneath the trees. Had wanted the soft darkness that seemed to swallow us both. I think he understand that, though I never said. I think he did.

He walked beside me, that night. Or ... something, at least. I heard no footfalls. Saw no feet. He moved beside me, through whatever means spirits do. A quiet, gentle companion, vaguely smiling. When I stumbled, he took my arm in his. That _did_ startle me. I had not thought him solid. Real, yes, but not ... But he did take my arm, gently, in a pale hand, and rested it over a shadow-clad arm that did not give, though it was the softest thing I had ever felt. The shadows seemed to move about my fingers. Seemed to catch them gently and hold them, warm about me.

I told him a great deal, I think. Perhaps not so much as I thought, though I suspect he knew anyway. Told him of what had been my home, of who had been my love. Of bright, laughing green eyes, and hair like fire. Of words that had frozen me to the core, that had shattered apart something inside me. I told him ... so many things, that I would have told no other creature in this world. I had no _reason_ to, no sense to trust him so. But I had run, wanting the shadows, and he only watched me, a stillness at my side, and let me pour some bright, bitter thing into the silence that rested gently between us. He said ... not much. Some little, murmurings around the edges of my pain, in a voice soft and cool, that did not freeze. His pale fingers were warm over my arm. His shadows tangled me softly. We walked for hours, for what I would have sworn were days, though the night never faltered, the darkness never fled. He guided me. I followed readily enough.

Foolish. Believe me, I _am_ aware. I knew, even then. Offering a spirit your pain, letting him guide you through the darkness. That is _asking_ to be betrayed, to be led astray. I know. Everyone knows.

At the time, I didn't much care.

And then ... Then, something began to change. The faint blush, some wakening in the sky, and my companion raised his head. Tilted it back, raised pale eyes towards the heavens, watching as the faintest, palest flush of light feathered across the darkness and the faintest edge of grey limned the shadows about us. He raised his face to the sky. And he smiled. Deeply, truly, with the simplest of all joys, and his grey eyes were radiant when he turned to me.

I gazed at him, confused, disappointed. Perhaps fearful, in some distant way that was far more vague that it should have been. His smile softened, gentled, shaking his head as he patted my arm gently.

"None of that," he murmured, light as the touch of shadow, with that soft tilt to his smile. "None of that. We must part now, that's all. Our night is done, and you have places you must be."

I demurred, then. Denied. No. Nowhere left, nowhere to go. Only the darkness beneath the trees, and I didn't know that I could bear to lose it. Didn't know that I could bear the daylight, and limelight, and the reality of my woes. Could I not stay, I asked. Could I not stay in the shadows, beneath the trees? Could I not ... have him that little longer?

He did laugh at me then. Finally, at last. He laughed. But it was not unkind. It was not ungentle. Only a little laugh, a creasing of his pale eyes, as though I were some precocious child, not particularly bright, but much beloved. It did not offend me so much as it should.

"No, dear one," he said, with that laughing curve of grey lips. "The daytime is not my realm. I can no more follow you there than you could learn at once to fly." He shook his head, regarding me softly, and then raised my hand gently to his lips. Pressed close, cool lips against warm shadows, for a bare moment, before I saw in him a flash of something like mischief, a warning only barely registered, and he spun me gently out of his embrace, spun me gently out of the catch of shadows to fetch up dizzily against a tree. He laughed at me, a little, still, and pointed a hand once I had regained my balance.

Pointed out between two trees, pointed out past of the edge of the darkness to where the light grew stronger. Out, I realised, to where the forest opened and ended, beyond the bounded edge. Out beyond the shadows beneath the trees, to the world beyond, the world I had left behind.

"Watch," he admonished me, soft and cool and smiling. "I will tell her to guide you, if you like. If you are not yet whole. She will listen. She takes care of much, if I ask."

And I did not much understand that, understood perhaps nothing at all, but I obeyed. Held tight to my tree, rough after the softness of a shadow-clad arm, and watched him step smiling beyond the trees, watched the shadows sweep with him into the grey touch of dawn, and the world he had, despite fears and wishes, guided me back to.

He stopped just beyond the boundary. Stood still as grey faded to silver, to gold, stood watching with face raised and a smile on pale lips. Light poured across him, gathered, built, limning him, catching the silver of his hair and the gleam of his eyes and raising them to pale fire. His shadows shivered around him, shuddered, flowed, and then ...

And then the shadows about his chest, or where a chest should be, unfurled. Unfolded around his heart, and from him there spilled ... light. Fire. Glory. From him, unwrapped as though from an embrace, from _his_ embrace, there came a woman. A spirit. She emerged from him, uncurled from his arms while I watched, and for moment, for an endless moment, stood straight before him. Stood tall, stood proud, the blackness of her skin gleaming gold-bright like suns, her pitch-dark eyes flashing fire, all about her clothed in rains of light, in the radiance of dawn. The sun, held close in shadows, for the longest moment, and he smiled up at her. Stunned joy, sheer love, he gazed up at her, pale in the face of her, shrinking as she grew tall, folding as she stood straight.

I stared. Clutched tight to my tree, pressing pain into my palms as the world stilled and held silent for a shaking moment. She raised a dark hand to cup his pale cheek, tangled radiance amongst his shadows, and smiled, for a moment, her own smile next to his. Held her own love next to his, equal in one moment, smiling at her treasure.

And then he faded, my spirit. Her spirit. Sighed, cool and faintly laughing, and was gathered to her, shadows gathered into the embrace of light, pulled close inside her breast and held ... held close. Held into her. Folding into her embrace as she had unfurled from his, the Night gathered into Day. She gathered him as he faded into dawn, and he smiled a silver smile as he went.

I ... had not known. Had not understood, until that moment. He'd been no spirit beneath the trees. No ghost to guide me. I understood then. I saw, in that endless, terrifying moment, what had gathered me close and guided me to light. 

And in that moment, as I understood, she looked at me. Raised bright-dark eyes to mine, as the sun crested horizons behind her, raised one black, gleaming hand to me. Beckoning, with a smile so much darker than his, more radiant, more alive. No still and gentle being, this. No silence from her, no waiting. A bright, gleaming movement, instead. An offer, radiant and sure. But there was something in her eyes. Some shadow in the brightness, as there had been a gleaming in his shadow, and the creases about her eyes were his. The gentle laughing. She cared for much, for his sake. Cared for much, because he asked.

And because she did, because she cared, this dark and radiant being, I stepped out from beneath the trees. Stepped out from the shadows into a light that was none of his realm, a light he had adored regardless. I took a dark, powerful hand, raised my face to the laughing in her eyes, and let her pull me forth.

I did not see him again. Not as I had then. Nor her, after that first day when she guided me forth. That did not bother me so much. It was ... Well. Perhaps that was for the best. Perhaps one should only see such things once, only be touched by them once, and let memory suffice afterwards. It was dark, when I met him. As it always must be. 

The light belongs to her.

That's alright, though. She belongs to him, and he to her. In the blackest shadows beneath the trees, there is a little of her in his gleaming. In the brightest, most unforgiving light, there is yet a little of his shadowed stillness. It's enough, I think, to remember them by. And I think, perhaps, were I to meet him again ... that he should not laugh at me quite so much.

I could be wrong, though. It can be hard to tell, with gods.


End file.
